Mattias Ekström (Audi Sport Team Abt / Audi A4 DTM #5)
9th / 6th place, 40.208s (101 laps)
“We’ve made quite a bit of progress today. But if we want to win on Sunday,
we’ve got several more improvements to make. The funny thing is: when
you’re in the car, everything feels a lot quicker than it shows on the time
monitor. That makes the setup work particularly difficult.”
Christian Abt (Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline / Audi A4 DTM #11)
4th / 9th place, 49.331s (75 laps)
“On the whole, I’m satisfied with the way Friday went. We’ve tried a lot of
different things and primarily worked on finding the best possible mix
between a good top speed on the straight and enough downforce for
cornering. We’re headed in the right direction.”
Frank Biela (Audi Sport Infineon Team Joest / Audi A4 DTM #45)
21st / 10th place, 49.341s (105 laps)
“I think the work we did today went into the right direction. The car was
feeling very good in the end. With the brakes in particular we’ve made
great strides, and we’ve got a few more ideas for tomorrow. Generally
speaking, I’m happy to be driving at the Norisring again – this circuit has
always been something special.”
Martin Tomczyk (Audi Sport Team Abt / Audi A4 DTM #6)
16th / 17th place, 49.518s (87 laps)
“The Norisring simply isn’t my favourite track. But that inspires me all the
more to continue fighting and to – finally – make my way to the front of the
field here. Accelerating out of the hairpin still makes me lose the biggest
chunk of time – but I’ll get a handle on that.”
Tom Kristensen (Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline / Audi A4 DTM #12)
6th / 8th place, 49.531s (101 laps)
“I’ve come to the Norisring straight from Le Mans – in other words from the
longest to the shortest race track of the year. The circuit is easy to learn,
but it’s difficult to maintain a consistently high speed. The constant
changes between accelerating and braking are still making it somewhat
difficult for me to exploit the potential of my A4. Nevertheless, I’m hoping to
clinch a good grid position tomorrow for the large crowd of Audi fans.”
Emanuele Pirro (Audi Sport Infineon Team Joest / Audi A4 DTM #44)
19th / 20th place, 50.054s (99 laps)
“We started from a good basis here but then our work went into the wrong
direction completely. I tried everything, but simply nothing came out of it.
We’ve still got a lot a work to do until tomorrow.”
Hans-Jürgen Abt (Team Director Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline)
“The result is typical for the Norisring because, once again, we were all
fighting for hundredths of a second. But my whole team went about
working their way down the task list in a very professional and calm
manner and sorted out all the issues. So, we’re well set for the free
practice session and the subsequent qualifying. And we’re sure that our
many fans in the grandstands will help us take our A4 cars to the front of
the field.”
Ralf Jüttner (Technical Director Audi Sport Infineon Team Joest)
“Frank has shown that it’s possible to get into the top ten – but the field is
incredibly tight. With Frank, our work went into the right direction, his A4
was very good in the end. On Emanuele’s car, we made change between
the two tests that, unfortunately, didn’t work out at all. We’ll reverse this by
tomorrow and try to get Emanuele, as well, to where Frank’s been today –
the top ten.”
Dr Wolfgang Ullrich (Head of Audi Motorsport)
“We knew that things would be very tight and difficult. With regard to the
standings, it’s good of course that Mattias is yet again the quickest Audi
driver. Altogether, though, we’re not yet satisfied with the result. Now, we’re
going to gather all the data and draw the right conclusions from it. Due to
the small differences in the times clocked by the contenders, it’s
particularly important here to be sorted out perfectly.”
|